A Commentary on the Passing Scene by
Robert Paul Wolff
rwolff@afroam.umass.edu

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Saturday, July 28, 2018

NIGHT SWEATS

Some of you have expressed concern that Trump, in a pique or
to distract attention from his worsening legal peril, will launch an attack on
Iran.This is a prospect that keeps me
up at night, and I am not soothed by the thought that John Bolton is whispering
in his ear.I suppose we must hope that
he is so in thrall to Putin that he will not dare without getting Russian
clearance, which I should like to think he would not get.In the face of such dangers, it seems
feckless to soldier on trying to elect a Democrat in the NC 6th CD,
but I think we must teach ourselves to operate on several planes
simultaneously. Launching a cruise missile
strike on forewarned Syrian airbases, all the while eating a large piece of
chocolate cake, is his infantile notion of exercising his war powers.Unfortunately, a one-off air attack on Iran
would have catastrophic consequences.

Short of pulling up stakes and fleeing the country, I do not
see what else I can do save add my tiny bit to the political struggle.

12 comments:

I don't agree that Trump needs an ok from Putin before attacking Iran, but let's assume that he does.

Why would Putin prevent Trump from attacking?

First of all, an attack by the U.S. against Iran, with the inevitable "collateral damage", would turn most of the Muslim world against the U.S. (except the Saudi ruling elite and their ilk in other petrostates), and that would benefit Putin in his quest to turn the Middle East into a Russian sphere of influence.

Second, while Iran and Russia are technically allies in Syria insofar as they both back Assad, they are rivals for control over Syria. I assume that Assad stays in power, by the way. A U.S. attack against Iran would weaken Iran and turn Russia into the obvious candidate for Assad to turn to, since he needs backing from other powers to keep his own population in check, etc. Another reason for Putin to applaud (even though publicly he will decry it) a U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Recalled that when Obama was planning to attack Syria for "crossing a red line," Putin offered to support a United Nations Security Council resolution to force Syria to deliver its chemical weapons to UN inspectors if Obama changed his mind on the bombing of Syria.

Putin, in effect, de-escalated the situation and Obama was able to save face and back down.

One only hopes that Putin can come to the rescue a second time.

But with Trump's former lawyer and now his lifetime CFO preparing to flip, Trump must be feeling trapped. Does anyonebelieve he will respond to all this simply by tweeting and organizing those dumb rallies? As you say, with Bolton whispering in his ear, the situation is a tad ominous.

Not only Bolton whispering in Trump's ear, but also Netanyahu and the Saudis, both of who are generous when it comes to presidential campaigns and can promise future contracts for Trump hotels and golf courses.

The upper reaches of the U.S. military and the defense sec., Mattis, are not at all in favor of attacking Iran. So mainly for that reason I'm skeptical it will happen (which is not to rule it out completely, of course). There was a column in Foreign Policy a while back about this. May try to link it later.

This is interesting because if what you say is true (the U.S. military is against attacking Iran) and what many of us suspect is true (Trump wants to attack), we'll see how much power the President really has and how much power the Pentagon really has. There's a long debate on the left about whether the president is a puppet of the military industrial complex and the intelligence agency or not. I know the Constitution says he (or she) is the commander in chief, but the debate is about to what extent the Constitution functions in the real world.

MSNBC, for example, in the last year had 455 segments devoted to the Stormy Daniels saga and zero dedicated to explaining the Yemen war and the US role in it. I doubt MSNBC, media arm of the resistance, will probe the role of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and other war profiteers in all of this. Nor, as rumors of an imminent attack swirl about, will they point to their rising stock prices as evidence of collusion, let alone material interest.

The essential political worry is that Democrats would not seriously criticize the action and a not insignificant number of voters would rally around the flag. The left has been silenced, marginalized, discounted and smeared as agents of foreign evil doers.

Yet, the crisis does present opportunity; is an anti-war/anti-trump movement likely?

Dr. Wolff,Isn't this kind of cynical talk (about Iran and U.S. relations) the same thing that everybody was saying about N. Korea and the U.S. several months back? [That the President has a militaristic character, and that he truly wants to invade N. Korea because that country is the Trump administration's enemy?] But look what kind of relations we have now: very nice, now, as opposed to, very bad, back then... Btw your Night Sweats reminded me of Wallace Shawn's audio book: Night Thoughts. That 70 (+ or -) page essay of his is very liberal, very brilliant, and very enjoyable to contemplate over and to listen to. I thought I would pass that along as I am a fan of his.

Not that the comment was addressed to me, but I wouldn't say that U.S./N. Korea relations are now "very nice." There are some signs of progress, but it's much too soon to say anything more than that, and whether the key issue of 'denuclearization' will pan out remains to be seen.

About Me

As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.